Brutal Movie Deaths Audiences Never Noticed

Some cinematic deaths are more upsetting than others; sure we were all traumatized when Mufasa was trampled to death by a herd of wildebeest, but then again, we all laugh when Samuel L. Jackson gets eaten by a giant shark mid-monologue. It turns out that some movies are hiding some truly brutal movie death scenes that went unnoticed, such as how ...

Advertisement

6

The Star Wars saga is full of memorable death scenes; from Darth Vader's tearful goodbye to his son, to Obi Wan deciding he'd be much happier as a naked ghost, to Padme passing away for medically spurious reasons. Well it turns out there were a few major deaths in the sequel trilogy that you may not have even noticed, either because you were reaching for a handful of popcorn at the time or possibly because you were busy rage-Tweeting from the bathroom.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Take Admiral Ackbar, the squid-man who led the assault on the second Death Star. He showed up again in The Last Jedi, but since his trap-detecting skills apparently aren't what they used to be, he fell prey to the First Order and died offscreen early in the film. Oddly, no one took even 4 seconds to commemorate the loss of the greatest character ever created by George Lucas during lunch at Red Lobster.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Then in The Rise of Skywalker, another Return of the Jedi character meets a violent end and goes oddly un-memorialized: Nien Nunb. The adorable jowely alien who once co-piloted the Millennium Falcon dies bravely in the final space battle against the Sith fleet. We briefly see him in a spark-filled cockpit, in a moment so brief, most of us didn't realize he was gone until the author of the film's novelization Tweeted about it.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

He even gets less of a send-off than Snap Wexley, who's less of a necessary character and more of an excuse for J.J. Abrams to hook his old Felicity buddy up with some sweet Lucasfilm residuals. Hopefully we won't one day find out that Chewbacca died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a TikTok video.

Related:

5

Jurassic World --Claire's Assistant is Even More Tragic Than You Think

Midway through the blockbuster reboot/inadvertent prognosticator of current eventsJurassic World, a whole bunch of dinosaurs get loose. They quickly begin picking off innocent tourists in the worst theme park disaster since Superstar Limo. A lot of people seemingly died, possibly even musician Jimmy Buffett, who was a the titular Cheeseburger in Paradise (but for a dinosaur). The most grisly death we see is that of Claire Dearing's assistant Zara, who had the unmitigated gall to be both a) British and b) not super-thrilled to babysit a small child and a disquietingly horny teen boy. Zara gets picked up by a pterosaur, and eventually eaten by the mosasaurus.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

The brutal scene was not without controversy, with one critic calling this moment of "comeuppance ... strangely cruel." Amazingly, this scene is even more cruel than you might have realized. In a brief moment earlier in the film, we overhear a momentary snippet of Zara's phone conversation and she's planning her wedding. Imagine if the original Jurassic Park included a scene where that slimy lawyer showed everyone pictures of his adorable newborn hours before dying on the toilet.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

More specifically, Zara is telling her friend that her fiance Alec isn't having a bachelor party because "his friends are animals." So this scene is probably meant to further the movie's weird conjecture that Zara is a buzzkill who doesn't want us boys to have our fun, and therefore we should all laugh as she's torn to pieces by a giant sea monster.

Related:

4

Back to the Future Part II-- Old Man Biff Gets Deleted From Existence

Back to the Future fans were recently debating why Marty's father didn't notice that his son looked a lot like his wife's old flame -- even though for all we know he totally did and was quietly marinating in his own anger waiting for The Maury Povich Show to hit the air. But there's a way bigger plot hole in the sequel. After stealing Marty's sports almanac and gifting it to his past self, Biff returns the Delorean to 2015. But, as Doc later explains, Biff should have travelled to an alternate future, along the new timeline in which Biff runs a casino and has somehow extended the Vietnam War by a decade.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

So how does this make sense? It still mostly doesn't, but as he's returning the time machine, old Biff is actually being erased from existence. That's why Biff is panting and sweating like a pervert on a treadmill as he exits the car. A deleted scene makes it clear that Biff, as we know him, is being violently ripped from the fabric existence, which is apparently a super-painful process.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Which makes us wonder why the first movie didn't end with Marty successfully returning to 1985 then collapsing on the sidewalk in agony as he faded away forever.

Related:

3

Zack Snyder Killed Off Jimmy Olsen And None of Us Realized It

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel was a decidedly dark take on the Superman story; from Supes snapping Zod's neck in front of a small child, to Pa Kent letting himself die in a tornado -- possibly because Kevin Costner had to go drop the slacks he wore in The Postman off at his Kevin Costner-themed restaurant. At least Snyder didn't include a scene where someone shoves a gun in Jimmy Olsen's face and pulls the trigger ... that came in the next movie.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

In the beginning of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Lois Lane travels to Africa to interview a warlord, accompanied by a scruffy young photographer. It turns out that the photographer is actually working with the CIA. When his cover is blown, he's promptly shot in the head. We later found out that this intrepid young lad was actually Jimmy Olsen, whose role in the Superman series has, historically, been that of Superman's best pal and not some random spy who gets his brains blown out.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

This little tidbit wasn't revealed until the "extended cut" of the movie -- meaning that millions of fans watched an iconic comic book character's murder without even realizing it. According to Snyder, this was his way of having "fun" with the character. Thankfully we were spared a scene in which Krypto is mauled to death in a back alley dog fight.

Related:

2

Groot Actually Died at the End of Guardians of the Galaxy

Somehow Marvel found a way to make us all shed a tear for a large mutant tree man when, in the final moments of Guardians of the Galaxy, the noble Groot sacrifices himself to save his new friends. But before the movie ends, we see that Groot has survived as a sapling that becomes Baby Groot, and eventually Angsty Teen Groot.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

While it seemed to many of us as though Groot had been resurrected like some kind of arboreal Jesus, it turns out that's not actually the case. According to director James Gunn, Baby Groot wasn't Groot reborn, but merely "his son." Meaning that the original Groot is completely and utterly dead. Well, crap.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Related:

1

Aliens-- Burke's Ultimate Fate was Appropriately Gruesome

The real villains of the Alien franchise aren't the Xenomorphs -- they can't help that they're scary-looking and have acid for blood. No, the real baddies are those corporate jackholes who keep ruthlessly trying to acquire alien DNA as if it were the streaming rights to The Office. In the first movie it's Ash, the android who advances the Weyland-Yutani corporation's secret agenda at the expense of human life. In the follow-up, Aliens, it's Carter Burke, played by Paul Reiser, the slimy company man who's willing to sacrifice Ripley, Newt, and a platoon of Marines just to get his paws on a real live alien. It sure seems like Burke dies, but originally, his fate was much more definitive and appropriately horrifying. In a deleted scene we actually get to see Burke again. As Ripley races to save Newt, she encounters Burke, cocooned in goo, writhing in pain while an alien gets ready to burst out of his body like his tummy is a giant cake at a bachelor party.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

As he groans in pain and begs for help, Ripley simply hands him a grenade and walks away. A minute later, we hear an explosion offscreen -- at which point, we like to imagine is when he wakes up in cold sweat next to Helen Hunt.